Moroccan pop star Saad Lamjarred will appear before a French criminal court on Monday for a new rape charge related to an alleged assault near Saint-Tropez, France, in 2018, France 24 reported.
The 40-year-old singer, who has been accused multiple times of sexual assault in recent years, denied the allegation and maintained the encounter was “consensual.” The court is expected to deliver its verdict on Thursday.
Lamjarred is on probation and is scheduled to appear at 2 p.m. local time before the Draguignan Criminal Court in southern France. The alleged victim’s lawyer, Dominique Lardans, said she will request a closed-door hearing due to the psychological impact on her client. “She endured a night of terror and seven years of waiting,” Lardans said.
According to investigative statements, the woman met with Lamjarred in a nightclub in August 2018, where she was working as a waitress. She told police she did not initially recognize him as a celebrity. She added that she later accompanied him to his hotel for a drink, where he allegedly took her to his room and raped her. Lamjarred disputed this account.
Lamjarred has previously been the subject of several sexual-assault allegations. In 2010, he was implicated in a rape case in the United States, which was later dropped following a private settlement. In 2017, French authorities charged him over allegations by a French-Moroccan woman who claimed he assaulted her in Casablanca in 2015.
In 2023, the criminal court in Paris sentenced him to six years in prison for the rape and assault of a woman in 2016. He has appealed the judgment, acknowledging he struck the woman but insisting the encounter was consensual.
